Uncover aka The Guilt Within
by yllektra
Summary: Noah's Feelings as he is forced to keep things from Claire S1 mostly


b Title: /b Uncover aka The Guilt Within

b Rating: /b G

b Disclaimer: /b Nobody is mine..but i would settle for Peter or Isaac or even Sylar...See? I am reasonable:P! D

b Characters/Pairings: /b Mr Noah Bennett/A bit of Claire

b Word Count: /b 1147

b Summary: /b Mr Bennett's feelings as he is forced to keep things from Claire and pretend he doesn't know anything.

b Author's Notes: /b No spoilers..Just an emotional fiction:P

b u Uncover aka The Guilt Within /u /b 

I can see it in her eyes. Her trust in me is fading. I can see it in her eyes. In those enormous blue eyes that only a few days ago looked at me as if I were all-powerful.

I know she believed in me. I could feel it in my heart. In my soul, in my essence. Every time she glanced at me, every time she called out to me. Every time she drew herself in my arms.

I know she is not mine. She never was. I only adopted her but God knows I have come to cherish and love her more than anything I have ever known or owned.

It really scares me to think that I didn't initially believe it was a good idea keeping her close, raising her as my own. The way of life I had chosen, the path I had followed seemed really incompatible with caring for a child.

How ironic that sounds.

Now I could never picture my life without her in it.

When I close my eyes, my mind keeps going back to moments we have shared.

Her first words or even moments of unspoken communication. One look, one nod, one grin, one smile.

The way she watched her mother and me. The way she observed everything, taking in every detail of every thing and every procedure.

Her intellect shone through.

The way she was persistent, curious, resilient really surprised me.

She was so ahead of all other children her age. u She was /u . Or maybe it's just me, thinking and acting like a father. A really proud father.

When I hold her in my arms, I feel more connected to her than ever. I laugh when she laughs, I care when she cares, if she cares…

I am angry when she is angry… I see things through her eyes, I cry her tears…

She is everything to me and I am nothing without her.

She doesn't know how it hurts me to watch what she is going through, thinking she is alone in this and can't share it with me.

How it kills me inside having to stand by as she thinks that her world is falling apart. As she thinks that no one is like her. That her gift, her unique ability setting her apart from any other being, is nothing but a curse.

Something to be ashamed of. Something on account of which she could be ridiculed or humiliated.

All those nights when she cried alone in her room she thought no one could hear her. But I could! u I did! /u And it felt like death within me.

All those times she took knives and forks and razors and used them to cut herself, to scar and to maim herself testing her limits.. It was u me /u bleeding. It was u me /u aching.

Unable to take away her sorrow and her loneliness.

All those times she felt frustrated and just wanted to let out, anxious to pick a fight, to use sharp words randomly aimed, I was glad to give her the chance to do just that.

I welcomed it. I could handle her anger. I could handle her irony, her sarcasm. I deserved it.

But I couldn't handle her pain. I couldn't handle her suffering, because it was one I could not alleviate.

I did not have the right to try to. It felt like cheating. It felt like hypocrisy.

After all, I knew what she was, what she could be. I couldn't be sure at first but I knew.

I knew before she did. I dread to think how she found out. Was it an injury? Was it a "death"?

What horrible experience gave her clues as to who she truly was? How special she was?

And did she know that "special" went along with "tormented".

Because nothing is for free. We all have to pay the price for what we get, for what we do, what we are…

God knows this is mine.

The price I have to pay.

Being unable to help the only person needing me the most.

Yes, she is indestructible, she can't die. But then again she does.

She dies a little inside every time she feels alone. Every time she feels like a freak. Every time she is scared of what she could do, what she could become. She dies every time she knows she has to lie to me, her mother, her brother.

She doesn't know that I know. She doesn't know it could be so much better.

She doesn't know I am really a coward and I could have told her from day One.

She doesn't know I die inside too.

She doesn't know I deserve it for what I have done. To her and to myself. But most importantly to her.

One day she will find out. What I have done, why she was chosen to be my daughter.

And maybe I will tell her how hard it has been for me all these years to keep the truth from her. To keep this secret that is choking me. I can feel words just about to come out of my mouth, my lips but somehow never finding their way out.

And maybe I will tell her how much I love her and it will be enough.

Maybe she will look into my eyes and see that as I utter the words, there's an honesty she hasn't seen before. Maybe she will be able to see right into my soul and know that it is the utter truth.

Maybe she will know that I would have given everything for her not to hurt.

Maybe she will feel it in her heart that I love her more than my life, more than life itself and as cliché as that sounds…maybe she will know that I would gladly give my life up for hers.

I would give all of my years to come just so that she can have an extra 10 minutes.

There's nothing I wouldn't do for her. There's nothing more important.

Maybe I wont have to say anything, maybe it will be enough for her to just hold me and listen to my heart beating inside my chest to the rhythm of her own heartbeat and maybe that moment she will realize that perhaps we do not share the same blood but I am her family in ways that go beyond the physical laws or the laws of biology, DNA and genes.

Maybe she will understand that family is not where you come from. Family is where you belong, or even when you want to be, where you want to belong…

But till then I have to maintain this façade of ignorance. This masque I cannot bear as well as the burden of my guilt…

Waiting, just waiting for her or even wishing for her to uncover… Uncover the truth….

Fin


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